Magnets, bulbs, batteries

Magnets, bulbs, batteries
Like a fresh start, a wrong turn, a shortcut out from a 1987 school canteen queue
where you are polite to dinner ladies, let bullies make you eat eggs
and do not know who Nirvana is.
You, dear sweet apologising egg eater, hold bright bowls of goldfish in your head -
you just don’t know it, until your years are half way over,
and my God, the people you let treat you like an experiment.
If only you would stop holding open doors, apologising, reading the dictionary on wet break, you would have the confidence to predict that by the time you are 23 you attract three main types of people: magnets, bulbs, batteries.
Wait ! We have to go through this in stages
so as not to break the sense,
logic likes the progressive story sections.
O.K, sorry, fact is, your goldfish leaps out the bowl and stops breathing dead
on the you are not allowed to watch, tick of the Neighbours clock.
You bury him in the garden along with a battery in case he needs re-starting.
O.K, you don’t, but aged 15 you wish you had, while your magnet boyfriend waits for you in bed. I know this is a leap in imagining, but –
you are 13 deep on your knees, digging for goldfish skeletons with your sorry sore fists,
you find a battery, leaking zinc onto plant roots.
Gosh - we’ve reached a magnet of meaning;
batteries leak, bulbs break, magnets can fall off the fridge.
Now where exactly does that leave us with experiment;
thinking about the future with its science sections -
kissing your partner like his mouth is a magnet.
All the fresh starts, the wrong turns, the short circuits seem to be where the story is – in dinner queues, goldfish skeletons, bed -
so how come its 2010, and you’re not done being sorry yet.